


Mess by Design

by TheRODster



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Romance, M/M, Nightmares, implied drift/rodimus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 11:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20339563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRODster/pseuds/TheRODster
Summary: Rodimus still had night terrors.





	Mess by Design

**Author's Note:**

> This is definitely not a happy fic just to forewarn. Even I was tearing up while writing it.  
Theme of the piece is "Black Flies" by Ben Howard.
> 
> Timeline: takes place sometime after Drift's exile off the Lost Light.

All he could remember was heat; the ghost of it rippling across his frame in recharge. Spoiler wings flickered nervously on the back of a sleeping mech, twitching every time his processor turned over with a new dream. He tossed to the left, shaking a pillow loose to the floor. Yellow hands bunched up the sheets around his chest, knees tucking close to ball up against the shadows dancing around him. His vents whooshed with an agitated and heady noise, faceplates pinched up in distress. His lips curled into a snarl, then grimace, then a whimper escaped. More heat rushed around him and the sheets became unbearable. He threw them off in a flail, mumbling a lost name and seeing flashes of color behind darkened optics.

The din of screaming; the echo and rumble of something on the horizon over building tops. Rodimus blinked rapidly, his vision smeared with static while he felt like his plates were boiling on his frame. The ground was hard and rough on his backside as he finally got his optics to focus. The ceiling of his habsuite did not greet him. Skies blackened with smoke made his brow draw down in confusion before he felt a familiar pit in his tanks. His spark bottomed out with an icy shot of fear and he slowly picked himself off the ground. He knew this city, knew it by spark and by name. The moment he even tried to utter its name, it felt like someone had him by the throat strangling him.

He coughed and sputtered in disbelief as the ringing in his audials began to slip away and the vague din of voices became a chorus that knocked the wind out of him. Screaming and shrieking made him flinch and his knees buckled barely a few steps from where he’d woken from. He tumbled over the edge of a gap in the street, skidding down a slope of broken rubble and metal. Rodimus came to a jarring halt, groaning soft and dizzy as he slammed into something cold. He tried to orient himself, his world turned upside down when he came nose to nose with a dead face bent in the throes of surprise and agony.

The speedster scrambled back with a sharp cry of horror at the gaunt faces of mechs and femmes littering the caved in street just beyond his pedes. Their bodies were painted with the last moments of their lives, grey and listless with empty optics. A great rumbling snatched his attention and just over the cityline, Rodimus thought he could see the massive shapes of dead energon harvesters. They haunted the horizon of his precious home and sickness tore through Rodimus as he looked back down at faces he was beginning to recognize in the dust. Friends, even people he dared to call family littered the street, the energon ripped from their cores like a dead battery.

He was frozen to the spot in the street, trembling as he coughed on smoke pluming up like black pillars from the buildings. They were all still burning, crumbling under the weight of the damage. Rodimus felt energon backing up in his throat as he became transfixed on several different frames. More bodies had made it up the slope as he looked around; those who had managed to escape the grasp of the harvester only to die in a surging blaze that came from the ground below. His spark twisted, shrinking painfully in his chest as he saw mechs and femmes reduced to slag from the sheer heat and fire that had erupted from the core of Nyon.

Like a dying star, Nyon had taken everything with it in one spectacular display of fiery grace. It consumed its people, kept them from the greedy reach of Zeta’s harvesters. Rodimus felt his throat tighten and he bent forward on his knees, retching painfully into the street. His body shook with the force, vents heaving in a panic that only ever came to him in his dreams. His retching turned to choking sobs and he tried to get to his pedes, sliding back down the slope in dismay as the pit seemed to get deeper. It rose up like walls around him, trapping him in the graveyard he’d created. He jammed his fingers into the broken rubble, struggling to climb out when he slipped on something slick and still warm. He fell along his back, hearing a splash and he stiffened when he lifted his hands and found them stained with energon. His frame was splattered with it when he tried to sit up. Something was catching at his spoiler, dragging him back down.

It felt like something pulled and Rodimus panicked as fingers took shape to hands that grasped at his shoulders and back. They pulled and pulled hard, ghosts of Nyon trying to drag him down into the pit that kept growing. He screamed as fingers fell across his helm, blinding him and muffling his voice. He thrashed against them, sobbing almost as he felt himself falling. His spark trembled and raced inside his chest, engine roaring in distress as fingers and hands turned to arms around his legs forcefully pulling him down. His optics finally surged open with a great start and Rodimus shot up in bed, a scream ripping from his voicebox. He gulped down as much air as he could, bent forward across his lap in pain as his overworked fans turned viciously to cool him.

Rodimus still had night terrors.

He shuddered, plates rattling in a low sound as his optics adjusted to the darkness of his room. Shapes started to form hard outlines and he could see a table tucked to the side with two chairs just short of the glossy window. Pink and purple hues cast a soft glow through the glass from a far off nebula that they passed, but he didn’t stop to appreciate the comforting light as he blindly fumbled a hand along the bed. He was searching for a familiar shape, trying to blindly find it as he closed his optics against the oily whispers of his dreams. He started to feel the fingers of panic climbing their way back up his spinal strut when he couldn’t find what he was looking for.

“Drift?” he croaked, voice weak and rough as he turned to the side.

He was expecting to the see the outline of finials jutting up from the pillow, belonging to a very disgruntled speedster who would have woken up from Rodimus’ screams. He expected soft blue optics to greet him in the dark and careful hands to take him by the cheeks and lean in close. Drift never asked about the night terrors, sparing the red mech from having to relive them. He would just murmur soft words into Rodimus’ audial and pulling the shaking speedster into his arm. It would make him feel safe as servos would smooth down the flared plates over his frame; ease the aching tension in his spoiler with soft stroking.

He whispered his Amica’s name again with a whimper when Drift didn’t answer the first time. His throat locked up when he finally remembered why. The space on the other side of the berth was empty rather than occupied by the warm presence of the white mech. There was no comforting waft of another’s field occupying his own; no warm servos to cup his cheek and whisper that Rodimus would be safe. The fiery mech put his palm flat against the empty space that Drift always recharged in and peeled his hand back with a stuttering intake.

The space was cold.

His optics darted about, spoiler sinking on his back as the tears began to spring to his eyes. They misted over and he buried his face into the knees drawn up to his chest. He hugged his legs, curling in on himself amongst the mess of pillows and blankets. The shine of his optics broke the darkness as he looked back at where he’d forgotten Drift would never be again because of Rodimus. A tear rolled down his cheek as he pictured a warm smile, Drift lounging on his side lazily next to Rodimus. He could recall so many evenings of just talking, cuddling, soft touching, and making a home together in the captain’s berth. Drift’s voice echoed in his audials as he remembered the ghost of a touch across his thigh as the other mech would reach out while laughing with joy.

The touches would wander until Drift had enticed Rodimus to close the gap, their frames folding together just right. More tears threatened to fall over the brink as Drift’s face vanished and an empty berth took its place. He started to shake again, plates quivering with the touch of his night terrors and the agonizing loss of his Amica. He hugged his legs tighter, stifling a sob as he finally found his voice. Broken apologies died on his lips, staring at the solitary pillow Drift always used. His spark turned to ice and he buried his face as fresh tears spilled down. It was deep into the night cycle on the Lost Light, many of the crew in recharge as they drifted through the stars. Rodimus couldn’t count himself among them as he cried silently into his knees.


End file.
